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                        Frequently Asked Questions

             * Why does ePerl use Perl 5 and not <insert your
               favorite language here> as the underlying language?

               First, because the author still used Perl for many
               years as his primary scripting language and second
               because Perl 5.002 and higher provides a nice way
               to directly embed the language into other programs.

             * Will be there other languages supported in the
               future?

               NO! If you want to use other embedded languages
               either watch for Stedman Development's Wave Machine
               (http://www.databasen.se/stedman/wavemach.htm) or
               feel free to write your own interpreter.

             * How powerful is ePerl compared with PHP/FI or other
               scripting languages?

               It is as powerful as the already installed Perl 5
               language on your system, i.e. if you power up your
               Perl 5 language with many modules or other stuff
               then ePerl will benefit, too.

             * Ok, what Perl 5 modules do you recommend?

               I recommend you to install the following modules
               from CPAN for good software leverage:

                  o HTML: HTML-Stream-1.29a, HTML-0.6
                  o CGI: CGI.pm-2.29, CGI-modules-2.75,
                    CGI-Out-96.081401
                  o HTTP: libwww-perl-5.05, HTTPD-Tools-0.52
                  o Networking: libnet-1.02
                  o Images: GD-1.14, Image-Size-2.1

             * Why is there still no Apache API module for ePerl?

               Hmmmm... at least not because I cannot write an
               Apache module (see mod_rewrite if you don't doubt
               me). There are actually a few reasons which
               currently forces me to keep ePerl as a pure NPH-CGI
               program and avoid an Apache API module:

                  o There is already a mod_perl at
                    http://www.osf.org/~dougm/apache/ from Doug
                    MacEachern <dougm@osf.org> which does a good
                    job under its problematic Unix/Apache/Perl
                    environment. But it had to do a lot of tricks
                    and workarounds to be able to work correct and
                    fast (e.g. explicit vs. common Perl
                    interpreter under runtime and the implied
                    namespace collisions). And want to avoid to be
                    hit by the same problems.

                    If you really want ePerl for Apache as an
                    internal part then try Mark Imbriaco's
                    <mark@itribe.net> Apache-ePerl-0.10b module
                    (which can be found on CPAN) as a handler for
                    mod_perl.

                    When mod_perl will provide a nice C interface
                    for the ePerl stuff or when the Apache 2.0
                    provides the long-waiting content-handler
                    nesting, then I will again think about an
                    ePerl module for Apache.

                  o Although the current Perl 5 interpreter
                    library can be embedded into other programs
                    well, it still lacks memory robustness. It
                    still (as of 5.003_18) has memory leaks which
                    is unacceptable for usage in a long-running
                    application like the Apache webserver.

                        Frequently Asked Questions

         Copyright  1996 Ralf S. Engelschall <rse@engelschall.com>
